UNREST AND REST 



127 



round it, but either dive under it or climb over 

 it, and so continue their undeviating journey on 

 the farther side. Their annals record many sucli 

 marches, and praise their unswerving determina- 

 tion. And so, finally, they reach the sea, and you 

 would think that such a barrier must stop them. 

 Not a bit of it. They all march in, and continue 

 to swim until they either find land on the other 

 side or are drowned. 



We do nothing quite so foolish as that, but 1 

 very much doubt whether the peculiarity is con- 

 fined to us rodents. The butterflies, at times, 

 change their quarters in a vast flock, as I know 

 from personal experience, because they once came 

 dropping round me from the sky in hundreds. 

 ' Painted ladies,' they called themselves, and 1 

 tasted one or two of them, but found them nasty, 

 as you might expect from their name. Look at 

 the birds, too, how they suffer from the same 

 malady. The robins, for instance, go away, though 

 they do not seem to vanish like the swallows and 

 cuckoos, because others come from further north 

 to take their place. 



Even you men grow restless, and want to change 

 your quarters, after staying for a long time in the 

 same place ; but your life is altogether so artificial 



